hankyoreh

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo departs from Washington, DC, on Oct. 4 for a Quad foreign ministers meeting in Tokyo on Oct. 6. (Pompeo’s Twitter feed)

The recent panic about the South Korea-US alliance being in jeopardy is based on South Korea’s lukewarm response to the US government’s aggressive strategy of encircling China leading up to the US presidential election.

Under President Donald Trump, the US has devised a number of encirclement initiatives since this past June. In the area of foreign policy and security, the US has developed the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, informally known as the Quad, which is grounded in the US’ Indo-Pacific strategy. And in the area of the economy, the US has set up the Clean Network, which seeks to isolate Chinese IT firms such as Huawei.

On July 23, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described the Quad as a coalition of liberal countries committed to the encirclement of China. While past American governments had hoped that aiding China’s economic development would cause China to gradually develop democratic values, Pompeo said, that policy of engagement was a failure.

Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun picked up the thread during the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum at the end of August. “The Indo-Pacific region is actually lacking in strong multilateral structures. They don’t have anything of the fortitude of NATO or the European Union,” Biegun said. Just the four [countries of the Quad] might be a very important start,” Biegun said.

Amid these developments, a meeting between Pompeo and the other foreign ministers of the Quad countries (the US, Japan, Australia, and India) in Tokyo on Oct. 6 culminated in a resolution to meet regularly. “As partners in this Quad, it is more critical now than ever that we collaborate to protect our people and partners from the [Chinese Communist Party’s] exploitation, corruption, and coercion,” Pompeo said in his opening remarks at the meeting. He then told the press afterward that cooperation between the Quad members should be expanded to other countries so as to build a framework for long-term multilateral security in the Inco-Pacific.

In terms of the economy, the US has developed various strategies for encircling and isolating Huawei, one of China’s leading IT companies. The US regards Huawei’s rapid growth as a major threat to US security. On the demand side, the US has been pressuring its allies since early last year to boycott Huawei products connected with 5G technology, where Huawei holds a commanding lead.

And on the supply side, a ban on the unauthorized sale of semiconductors using American technology and software went into effect on Sept. 15. The US asked South Korea to join its Clean Network during the fifth South Korea-US senior economic conference, held over video, on Oct. 14, but Seoul declined to provide an immediate response, saying it needed “time to review” the request.

The Trump administration has faced criticism even inside the US for crossing the line in making aggressive demands of allies.

“I want a coalition for something [. . .] in the Asia-Pacific and the Indo-Pacific, but I don’t want a coalition against something,” former US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told the Nikkei, a Japanese newspaper, in an interview on Oct. 3. “Pompeo seems to be forcing [. . .] a choice between the US and China.”

Indeed, it’s unclear whether the other members of the Quad would support turning their dialogue into a collective security arrangement aimed at containing China.

By Gil Yun-hyung, staff reporter

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]